Thumbnail: The Celtics head to the Palace at Auburn Hills in their first attempt to get back on track. The Celtics are coming off their worst loss of the season and the Pistons have played pretty well as of late.

WHAT THE PISTONS DO WELL:
The Pistons have a pretty solid bench- at least offensively. Their two biggest acquisitions this offseason, apparently were brought in to play back up roles to aging players soon to be on the outs. A new face to the Pistons organization, Ben Gordon, is definitely not one that’s been forgotten among the Celtcs and the Celtics’ fandom. He shredded the C’s perimeter defense in last year’s playoffs, but has not had the pleasure of reattempting this feat with his new digs due to injury. Well, Gordon’s back now and he’s hit the ground running. Despite missing around 20 games due to injury, Gordon is still the third leading scorer on the team. Luckily for the Celtics, Nate Robinson is athletic enough to stay with Gordon on iso’s. Un-luckily for the Celtics, Robinson has not effectively figured out how to fight through screens and will undoubtedly give up some points given Gordon’s quick release.

Despite being the statistically second to worst team in the league, the Pistons have not only beaten the Celtics this season, but they also boast a nice little five game stretch going into tonight’s matchup.

During this five game stretch, the Pistons only managed to win two games, but one look at the actual data will show a much more threatening team:

I guess it’s not just threes that seem to cramp the Pistons style. As a team they only shoot 44% from the field- three percentage points lower than the league average.

PLAYER/S WHO MAKE ME WORRY:

Pretty much anyone on their front line. The Celtics have had their trouble with athletic big men with a lot of energy this entire season, thus Jerebko isn’t an ideal matchup for Kevin Garnett. The Celtics will also be without Kendrick Perkins tonight, which means the wide bodies that clog the lane for the Pistons will face little resistance. Rasheed Wallace isn’t about to bang around with anyone inside, which leaves Big Baby and Shelden Williams as the Celtics’ best bet to combat the Pistons’ bulk.

Will Bynum

Everyone knows what the Pistons notable players can do, so I won’t bother telling you something you already know. You’re NBA fans, so you also know how well lightening fast guards are doing this year. If you don’t, feel free to look up the stats from the past ten Hornets’ games and you’ll see that Darren Collison and Marcus Thornton have really put on a show.

Last year, Will Bynum was destroying people with his quickness much like Collison and Thornton of this season. Despite missing nearly as much time as Gordon has this season, Bynum is 6th on the team in scoring.

PLAYER/S WHO DO NOT MAKE ME WORRY:

Rip Hamilton.

The poor man’s Ray Allen is only shooting a shade over 40% from the field this season despite taking the third most shots on the team. The battle for best UCONN-er will be a fun one tonight, but won’t really be a contest.

Jason Maxiell

I just don’t see the same fire I did two years ago when this guy had his coming out party. He’s still putting up solid numbers, but I don’t worry about him anymore.

WHAT WE WANT TO SEE FROM THE C’s TONIGHT:

Nate Robinson and Shelden Williams. Why not? The Pistons have a plethora of the two things most other teams don’t: little scrappy guys and big burly guys. Why not fight fire with fire?

Speaking of fire, I’d like to see that back as well. To be honest, I don’t think any of us will tonight.

Not blasphemy at all. I fully expect the Cs to lose this game tonight. I can’t recall the last time I went into a game expecting them to lose. April 2007? Sigh.

Jason

I thought I was fed up with this team a couple of weeks ago. Then maybe it looked like things were turning around. Then the Cavs cave-in and Nets debacle and I’ve been buffering myself from this team since because I just can’t take it. It seems the pieces are all there and maybe we still just need to be patient until they can get more than one game played where everyone was healthy and available. The line-up has been in constant flux. How can you legitimately succeed like that? When I see 2-3 weeks where essentially this team is unified, meaning everyone is healthy, available to play, available to actually practice and finally get some kind of comfort with the new players, new plays and set some kind of rotation, then I think we can start drawing some conclusions. Right now, though, how do you say they can do X or can’t do Y? They are so unsettled and have been for weeks. As soon as one guy is back, another drops out and they are scrambling all over again. Look, I’m not making injury excuses because they still have to step up, but you do have to acknowledge the adversity it brings.

slam

Will Bynum was once a Celtic, right? No one ever seems to talk about this…. (if I’m right)

http://www.celticshub.com Zach Lowe

@slam: signed and waived pre-season ’05 (I believe). never played a game for Boston.